276 Container Rose Growing Basics

Show Transcript

GB 276 Container Roses TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred  0:00

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

If you’re currently growing roses in containers, or are thinking of adding a few potted roses to your patio or balcony, this is the episode for you. We get the tips from a professional rose grower, Ben Hanna, owner of HeirloomRoses.com. Also, Master Rosarian Debbie Arrington solves some tree rose woes for a listener. And, I chat with a local garden club about the need to keep an eye on soil temperatures in container plants during the summer, with tips for cooling them off.

It’s all in today’s episode, number 276, Container Rose Growing Basics.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go!

GROWING ROSES IN CONTAINERS

Farmer Fred

So I bought a rose recently, let me tell you the story of the rose and why I bought it. I'm gonna go back  to 1980, the night before my wedding. And we had the wedding dinner the night before, as is traditional with most weddings. And my mother was there. And my late mother could be sometimes difficult to work with, to say the least. And she said after the dinner, “I want a Cecille Brunner rose to wear.” And we looked around at each other and go, “oh man”, here we go, It’s 12 hours from the wedding and you want a Cecille Brunner rose. So my wife, thinking quickly, gathered her bridal party together and said, you have a job tomorrow morning, go find a Cecille Brunner rose. Well, they did. And she had one. So she was very happy because it reminded her of growing up on the farm in North Dakota, way back when. So we all lived happily ever after. So for whatever reason, I decided to get a - and I will pronounce it correctly now - a Cecille Brunner rose from my own garden. Just to remember that panicky night, many, many years ago. So where do you go shopping for an heirloom rose? So,  you do a search on the internet. And what pops up but heirloomroses.com and Cecille Brunner. It is a very old rose, it goes back to 1880. And it does well in a wide variety of climates. Obviously, if it can grow on a farm in North Dakota, it can grow just about anywhere. So I was looking forward to probably having a bullet proof rose, we'll see about that. So I ordered from heirloom roses.com. And it arrived when they said it was going to arrive. What shocked me, though, was when I opened the box and looked at the plant, it was kind of skinny and it didn't have any leaves. But it turns out, there's a very good reason for that. And they're also grown on their own root system. And we'll get into that a little bit later, too. We're talking with Ben Hanna. He is the president of heirloom roses.com up in Oregon in St. Paul, Oregon. Ben, tell us about your love of roses. How the heck did you ever get in the rose business?

Ben Hanna  3:42

My wife and I have always loved to garden. Plants have always been a big passion of ours. We've always grown roses. I grew up on a farm and grew roses. And my mom taught me all about roses and planting roses and things. But  about 10 years ago, I left corporate America and was looking for a lifestyle change that would keep me home, to be closer to my family, because  I was traveling all the time. And so my wife and I acquired heirloom roses from the founders 10 years ago, from Louise Clements. It was just a passion of ours. It's an online retail and farming together. So it was a great mix. good fit for me and my wife. And it's been a lot of fun, owning the business and being around a great team of people that love roses.

Farmer Fred  4:27

I noticed that in your biography, it says, “Ben loves that all five of his children have worked with him at the nursery.” Congratulations on that.

Ben Hanna  4:35

Yeah, that's been fun. Well, you know, it's a family business. So it's a little bit mandatory at times when it snows in Oregon and we got to clear greenhouses of snow, everyone's working. But no, it's been great. All my kids have grown up here doing different things from hands-on working with the plants to learning about marketing and all of the things that go with that and it's been good. It's, it's been very fulfilling and challenging at times.

Farmer Fred  4:57

Tell us a little bit about St. Paul, Oregon. And what the USDA zone is and  what is your weather like?

Ben Hanna  5:03

St. Paul, Oregon is south of Portland, about 30 minutes down in the Willamette Valley. We have really, really good soils. We're right on the Willamette River. So we have very good water access. And the unique thing about Oregon is it's got  four distinct seasons. So we do very rainy, wet, cold winters, and a long, dry summer. Most people don't know that about Oregon. But we do have a very long, dry summer. And so our access to water and being on the river here is really important. We're USDA zone eight. And so roses just flourish and do great here. One unique thing, too, is we grow all of our roses in containers. And we really try, almost all of our roses that you're going to buy from us have gone through a full dormant cycle and a winter. And I think  when that is the case, you're getting something that's really hardened off. That means that it's gone through a full cycle of going dormant, and it's gonna do well and become established well in your garden.

Farmer Fred  6:00

So obviously, you're propagating roses and these roses are grown on their own root systems, as opposed to what you might find in a big box store. And you only see them in those stores, probably in late winter, when the roses are wrapped tightly in plastic, but they're pretty big and  have pretty thick branches, but they're all grafted. Now, we've come to accept grafting of roses as standard procedure, but really, it doesn't have to be. The reason a lot of roses are grafted is because there are root systems out there that can make a rose grow a lot quicker and look a lot prettier if you're on display in a store.

Ben Hanna  6:40

That's correct. The grafting of roses has really been the mechanization of the farming practices to grow roses quickly and move them into retail and have a big plant on display. But it hasn't always been done that way. I mean, all roses will grow on their own roots, that's  the way a rose is hybridized and first established. They've been grown on their own roots, meaning that the top of the plant is the same as the bottom of plant. We grow them from cuttings, and so there's no grafting. It takes a little longer, it can be challenging at times. But I think the benefit there to the person putting these into their yard is they have a very well established plant that's going to be extremely hardy and do well in all climates.

Farmer Fred  7:23

And on the other hand, if you purchase grafted roses, that graft point can be a weak spot that might invite disease or decay. Frankly, it could be sending up shoots of a rose variety you don't want, if you don't pay attention to it.

Ben Hanna  7:39

Yeah, we see this all the time. Certainly early spring here in Oregon, when roses are really starting to grow and push hard. You'll see a rose that might have white blooms, and you go, oh, there's some red blooms, and they look very different. And that's the rootstock. The rootstocks, typically on grafted roses, they're very aggressive growers. And over time, that aggressive growing rootstock will take over the rest of the plant, it's bound to happen. It's just the nature of an aggressive growing rootstock like that. And also you kind of get lopsided plant over time, too, when you graft on.  There's no regeneration from the roots with basal break and another thing with an own-root rose, you're gonna get canes coming up from the roots that are the same as the rest of the plant, and you’ll get a better shaped plant that's just more robust and healthy.

Farmer Fred  8:23

Explain for people who don't know, they might be confused. Because if you hang out with rosarians long enough, you'll hear something like, “I can't take cuttings from that, because it's a patented rose”. But I was surprised to learn that patents for plants have a limited lifespan, they're only 20 years long.

Ben Hanna  8:41

Yes, that's true. You know, it's important to have a patenting process. Hybridizers put a lot of time and effort into a plant. Sometimes they'll put out 300,000 seedlings to get just one really good rose. And there's a lot of time and effort that goes into that. And as a grower, we want to honor that. So  we pay royalties to some of our  hybridizers. And then some of those are patented. And those patents do last for 20 years. Now, as a grower, we can't profit off of someone else's patent. Now, if you have roses in your garden and you want to take a cutting and give it to someone else, and you're not profiting from it, it's just a goodwill gesture, that's acceptable and fine. But it's the commercialization of a patented rose that can become a problem. And we certainly honor all of those patents and royalties and we really like the hybridizers we work with. They give us great genetics and the beautiful things they come up with.

Farmer Fred  9:31

But you still have your 900 roses. I would think the vast majority of them are very old roses.

Ben Hanna  9:37

They are. We have a lot of roses, and it certainly is in our name. We started with old garden roses back to the 1800s and those are great. Great varieties with a great story to tell with them, and they're really a unique part of your garden. I think everyone should have some old garden roses like your Cecille Brunner. I say it wrong. It’s stuck in my head that way. They're also new varieties that are coming out all the time. New colors, new styles and certainly a lot of the stuff that's coming. I especially like the Kordes roses, I think that they're bred for disease resistance and hardiness and they are a really nice shaped plant with good fragrance, they do very well. So you know, those new varieties are also great. You can have it both ways with roses.

Farmer Fred  10:19

As people peruse your online catalog at heirloom roses.com, they may come across a variety such as Just Joey,  that has an R next to its name with a circle. And just for people who don't know,  that's not a patent. That's a trademark registration.

Ben Hanna  10:35

That's correct. So that name is a registered trademark name that's given by the breeder. We honor that on our website and make sure that's very well known. So that,  Just Joey, across different places where you might see it, it's the same plant.

Farmer Fred  10:49

Trademark registrations can last a lot longer than a plant patent, too. As long as you remember to reregister it every now and then, yes. Well, you mentioned that you grow plants in containers. So we're going to talk a little bit about how to grow rose plants in containers. But talk a little bit first about when that plant arrives at your customer's house. Like I said, I was a little shocked to see no leaves, I figured it was the heatwave that was going on. But there were no leaves in the box. What was impressive about the plant, when it arrived in one gallon container, was the root system of that plant. I was showing that picture around to my Rosarian friends and they're all saying, Hey, that's a really good root system.

Ben Hanna  11:29

Yeah, when you're buying a young plant like that, and typically our plants are about 16 months old, when they leave our nursery it has a fully developed root system. That is, it’s got a lot of really fine roots that are very healthy and will take off and really establish well. So when you pop that container off, you'll see roots all the way around the outside,  they're a nice white color, they're really healthy, and they shouldn't be spiraled around a pot, we don't let that happen here. They're going to be very aggressively growing then and establishing, so the top of the plant can just take off and grow. We do this fully in our plants, we know that plant is going to do much better in a box if we actually take the leaves off the plant. And for a short period of time, that rose actually settles in, and it doesn't lose moisture that way. And it will do better. Now as soon as you get it out of the box, take it out of the plastic and give it a drink of water and then get it planted into the ground or into your large container. That plant is going to take off, you're going to see new leaves within a couple of weeks. And it's really going to start growing very vigorously. So we've had very good success with that. And we think that's probably the best way to ship plants. For people on the East Coast,  I tell my team they've got to go upside down in a box for seven days. You know, if they're gonna go to the upper northeast from Oregon, that's going to take that amount of time by the defoliating them and prepping them in a certain way that we do. They'll handle that in the box and be ready to go in their yard soon as they reach the destination.

Farmer Fred  12:56

Yeah, I gotta say that when old Cecil arrived here and didn't have any leaves, all I had to do was basically follow the instructions on the box that came with it. And within two weeks there were leaves.

Ben Hanna  13:07

Yeah, one of the things I like about growing any type of plants is I love to just see new growth. You know, I get excited about new blooms, but like this morning I was out walking through my yard and I saw there was some roses that I had in containers I had basal break coming up. I'm more excited to see that as I am blooms. So it's fun to see a plant come alive and start to grow and branch out buds and all of that.

Farmer Fred  13:31

And that's the good news when you're growing a rose on its own root system. If there's basal break happening at the ground level, you're gonna get the same rose.

Ben Hanna  13:39

That's right. That's a really healthy plant.

Farmer Fred  13:41

You mentioned fertilizers. Let's talk a little bit about the best fertilizer for Container roses. Now the one thing I did do, the day it arrived, I put it in a much larger pot about two feet wide, two feet tall and used a good potting mix. But what sort of potting mix do you like to use for roses?

Ben Hanna  14:03

A bagged potting mix is fine. To try to stay away from something with too much granular fertilizer in it. Sometimes  those can get a little hot. A lot of times that granular fertilizer that's in a potting mix will release with heat. And so if it gets really hot, you can get too big a dose of nitrogen to the young plant. It's not the best for it. So a good potting mix is is great. And then liquid fertilizer is what we always recommend for a first year plant.

Farmer Fred  14:31

Yeah, I love the smell of fish emulsion in the morning. So that's my go-to fertilizer, which has a NPK content, usually a 5-1-1, which is of low dosage but that's all the plant needs.

Ben Hanna  14:43

Yeah, and you know what's nice about it is you can water with that all the way into the fall and make sure your plant is healthy that whole time. It likes that liquid feed to get established. Certainly with a fish emulsion, it’s like that, too. It also feeds the microbes in the soil and creates an all-around better environment for the plant.

Farmer Fred  15:01

Definitely. Talk about the roses that you're sending out in the summertime. Where do you recommend people put them, if they live in a hot climate, after they get them?

Ben Hanna  15:12

The best place to put a rose after you get it is either into the ground or in a large container. I tell people to get them planted right away. The soil temperatures are going to be much cooler than what they'll get in a small pot, they're less likely to dry out. So they just need some more soil mass around them and plant them right away. That might be different. If you're getting a rose and it's still freezing outside you might want  to care for it a little differently. But certainly in the summertime, best thing you do is to get it in the ground and get it on a regular watering cycle and get it established, it will do much better.

Farmer Fred  15:43

So even though that location may be in full sun, if you're in a hot climate, go ahead and do that. But maybe top your soil with some mulch to let the moisture in the soil last a little bit longer and to stay a little bit cooler.

Ben Hanna  15:55

Yeah, and keep an eye out on it. A rose will tell you when it needs water. If you start to see a little bit of wilt, that's the rose telling you it's time to water. And you can get on a good cycle with that. And those roses will do well. Like I said, in Oregon here, it's hot. We're having upper 90 degree days, and the roses are in a greenhouse with the sides open, but it can be up to 100 degrees in there. So these plants you're getting from us right now are accustomed to hot days. And they'll do fine, they need some good water, like you said, and certainly any kind of mulch, you can put around the plant to really retain that water in the soils.

Farmer Fred  16:29

All right. So if we're planting in containers, give us some guidelines about planting roses in containers.  One thing I really liked because it was a healthy root system, and it wasn't going round and round the outside of the soil ball, I didn't have to do any scoring of the root ball to free up any roots. I was able to just plop it into the container around the new soil.

Ben Hanna  16:48

First thing, you planted it in the correct size container. The rose  needs a pretty good sized container to really establish and be happy. And so two’ by two’ is great, that's a great size for a container. It could be a little smaller than that. But that's a great size. But like you said, our roots are really healthy and vigorous. And they're going to be able to just drop right into the soil. I tell people to plant our roses similar to like planting a tomato and I plant them a little bit deep. And what that does is it promotes more basal break, and really gets the canes from the roots coming up. And it's just settles it in and is good and healthy for that plant. One thing I would say about containers, is the number one thing I see. The mistake I see people making is they don't have drainage holes in their containers. And so you want a container that will let the water out the bottom and the roots won’t be sitting in a puddle all the time. That can really be hard on a rose, to have feet wet. And so if you get a container, and I like containers from Costco, but I'll tell you, they don't have drain holes in the bottom. You can take a drill  and put a couple holes in the bottom to make sure that water can get out of there.

Farmer Fred  17:56

Okay, what size drill bit would you use for that?

Ben Hanna  17:58

Oh, like a half an inch or so you know, it doesn't take much.

Farmer Fred  18:02

What I like to do, too, is to raise the pot up, or maybe the pot might have some legs. Just so that there's no contact between the pot and the ground. Because those drain holes can easily just serve as a freeway for the roots to just basically anchor themselves in the soil below the pot. But when it does that, it blocks the drain holes.

Ben Hanna  18:21

Yeah, that's a really good point. You know, one thing my wife has been doing here. We have some pots on our deck in a couple different places on some concrete. And she's been putting them on these little trolley pieces. So we can wheel them around a little bit and move them around. And that works well to get them up off the ground. And then you've got to be kind of pushing back against the house for wintertime. It works great.

Farmer Fred  18:41

Yeah, just make sure that if you buy a base like that, on wheels, that you know the weight limit, you don't want to overdo the weight on that three wheeled or four wheeled system, because they could easily collapse on you if the weight is too much.

Ben Hanna  18:55

Yeah, that's a good point. Good thinking.

Farmer Fred  18:57

I had that happen to me doing a TV spot on HGTV a few years ago, where I was demonstrating planting a citrus tree in a half barrel, and I had the half barrel on this roller system that the crew had purchased. And I finished planting it and basically said something along the lines of, “see how easy it is to move.” And I moved it like four inches and the whole thing collapsed. Laughter ensued. That never made it to air though. But if you're going to use a half barrel for roses, and certainly that’s not a bad thing to do. You might want to use a furniture dolly. I know that you're no fan of granular fertilizer. Tell us why you want the roses, especially the roses from heirloom roses, to be fed with a liquid fertilizer instead of that granular fertilizer.

Ben Hanna  19:47

It's not that I'm opposed to granular fertilizer. It has its place, but all too often people use granular fertilizer on young plants or in containers. And fertilizer, in essence, is essentially a type of salt. And that can build up and create toxicity, so that would be too much of a good thing. It’s not a good thing, right. And so when you use liquid fertilizer, it's going to leach through the soil. Typically the ratios, the nitrogen phosphorus and potassium levels in liquid fertilizer are much lower, like we talked about with the fish fertilizer. It's a lower dosage, but applied more often, and so it's a much more forgiving way to work with that plant. And you're not going to burn the root system. like I said, your roots are really nice roots and too much fertilizer on them from a granular perspective, can hurt them and really cause harm to the plant. So we always say for the first year, use liquid fertilizer only. And then anytime you're planting in containers, it's best to use liquid fertilizer for any type of plant. You don't want the salts to build up in there and create a toxic environment that is really hard to overcome.

Farmer Fred  20:49

Exactly. And especially with the temperature fluctuations in a containerized plant, that granular fertilizer just might work against your best wishes.

Ben Hanna  20:59

That's right. I've planted in landscaping, I've done things where I've gotten a little carried away and put on too much granular. And I've really destroyed whole beds of plants accidentally with just too much granular fertilizer. So just be careful with it. Always read the instructions, follow the instructions carefully and keep a close eye on it.

Farmer Fred  21:19

I've noticed and you've probably noticed, too, that if you deal with Rosarians, and there's a few rose societies around here,  they have some interesting arguments. And it seems like everybody has a different method for pruning a rose. But I've come to the conclusion, after all these years of listening to pros and cons of every way to prune a rose, that roses are the most forgiving plant in nature, no matter what you do to them, because they'll bounce back.

Ben Hanna  21:45

That's right. You know, it's great that we have  these arguments, but the most important thing is that you prune your  roses. When you prune a rose, it stimulates it to grow. Now, how it grows after that can depend on how you prune it, that's very much true. And so certain people have different ways to do that. But I always encourage people  to not be afraid to prune. You really need that to stimulate new growth, you'll have a much better looking plant. And whatever style you use in pruning, that's fine. That's up to you. And you can experiment with that, and find what works for you. But don't be afraid to prune. And it's really important for that plant to  reach its full potential over time and to really take a nice shape. And then certainly I think there's a lot to be said about  climbing roses. A lot of people have balloons at the top and the way you shape and train a climbing rose really dictates how much bloom you get and how  you can get a wall of color that way.

Farmer Fred  22:38

Yeah, that's a whole episode in itself on techniques for pruning climbing roses. But yeah, generally speaking, they require some sort of trellis or support that you can wind the canes through.

Ben Hanna  22:50

Yeah, maybe another time we can discuss that. It's an art, and it's a lot of fun to see the results.

Farmer Fred  22:58

Yes, maybe you have a video of one at heirloom roses.com.

Ben Hanna  23:02

I do, I do. And maybe drop that in the show notes, if you want. It will be helpful and I think good for people to see. And interesting too. If you don't know much about training climbing roses, you'll learn something.

Farmer Fred  23:13

There's a lot to learn, and when you go to heirloom roses.com, all sorts of videos are there to help you out. Again, they have over 900 varieties of roses to choose from. And the biggest shock you're gonna find is when it arrives, it's going to be a small plant with no leaves, but a healthy root system. And folks, that's okay. We've been so inculcated to seeing roses at big box stores in late winter and early spring that are tightly wrapped in plastic but fairly good sized, half inch or one inch canes that  may have been waxed, too. It's just like a disaster waiting to happen. There's a lot to overcome when you buy a rose that's covered in wax to preserve moisture and tightly wrapped in plastic.

Ben Hanna  23:58

Yeah, yeah. On the front page of our website, we have a video where I tell people what to expect. So if you're wondering what you would expect, watch the video on our website, it'll tell you everything you need to know about how our roses will arrive and what our standards are, and we stick tightly to those so you always get a healthy plant.

Farmer Fred  24:16

We've been talking with Ben Hanna, he is the owner, proprietor and chief farmer at heirloomroses.com, In Oregon. Check out their website, especially for roses that you're having a hard time finding. And what's nice, too, with buying roses from a reputable firm like Ben's on the internet, the roses are in stock. As opposed to if you go to the local big box store, you're not going to find roses this time of year, that's for sure, now in summer. At Heirloom Roses, it's year round. And that just keeps you busy year round, I would think.

Ben Hanna  24:45

it does. And you know, actually I will say one thing. Fall is one of the best time to plant roses. We say October is a great time to get the plants in the ground. It's still warm enough to get established and then they're going to plop to life in the spring.

Farmer Fred  24:58

So actually, at heirloom roses.com If people go there and buy a rose,  they could have shipping instructions that say please ship in October.

Ben Hanna  25:06

Yeah, you can pick your ship date and we'll ship it to you when you want. And whenever the optimal time for planting is for you, and you're off and going.

Farmer Fred  25:13

They're all on their own root system, the roses at heirloom roses.com. Ben Hanna has been our guest, Ben, thanks for all the good info about roses.

Ben Hanna  25:21

Hey, thanks for your time. I appreciate it.

SMART POTS

Farmer Fred  25:31

I’ve told you about Smart Pots, the Original, award-winning fabric planters. They’re sold worldwide.  Smart Pots are proudly made 100% in the USA. They’re BPA Free and Lead-Free, making them safe for growing vegetables and other edibles.

The folks at Smart Pots have added a new product to their lineup, perfect for building the healthiest soil imaginable for your garden: by composting. It’s the Smart

Pot Compost Sak, a large, 100-gallon fabric bag that is lightweight yet extremely durable and lasts for years, and can hold 12 cubic feet of pure compost. This rugged fabric is entirely porous, containing many micropores that allow for air circulation and drainage. The fitted cover is a flexible plastic top designed to increase heat and help manage moisture in the mix, accelerating the composting process.

It’s easy to start a compost pile with the Smart Pot Compost Sak. Just open the Sak, set it on level ground, and start adding your compostable materials: grass clippings, vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and more, as well as fallen leaves, straw, and shredded paper. Next, place the optional cover over the Sak. That’s all there is to it.

Smart Pots are available at independent garden centers and select Ace and True Value hardware stores nationwide. You can find the location nearest you at their website.

And you can buy it online from Smart Pots!  Just Visit smart pots dot com slash fred. And don’t forget that slash Fred part. On that page are details about how, for a limited time, you can get 10 percent off your Smart Pot order by using the coupon code, fred. f-r-e-d, at checkout from the Smart Pot Store.

Visit smartpots.com slash fred for more information about the complete line of Smart pots lightweight, color